Hello, I'm a RTS mod developer and I going to be showing a little bit of what will hopefully be a great Lego-style real time strategy game.

The engine the game will be using is called Spring, it is a completely free open-source project that was originally built to run the game Total Annihilation. See the project webpage here, please read the FAQ there for any broad questions regarding the engine and its limitations, features, etc:

The overall game play style will be fast-paced, and in battles and skirmishes that have a sense of "power" about them (ie its meant to be realistic, not cartoony, after all the game its based off of is called Total Annihilation). Expect want to see units get obliterated and have their blocks go flying everywhere.

Before I get into what the mod will have, I'd like to say a bit about what i wont. The spring engine is limited, it is not a commercial product. There are problems, bugs, errors, and all sorts of limitations placed on what we can do. As such this will NOT be a duplication of the table-top game BrikWars. There will be no dice rolls, no turns, no measurements, no 75 page rule books. The mod will play like most strategy games, you start with nothing, build a base, build an army, and eliminate the enemy. This will not be about creating a perfectly balanced, competitive, popular, top-selling game. Its more about seeing our creations getting blown up in full 3D glory.

To get a feel for the direction the mod is taking now, please see the thread here:

I'm not going to repost everything said in that thread, but the most important thing to share is that there will be no custom ingame building. You wont be able to drag-and-drop bricks and customize your units within the game. Units will be designed and made in development programs completely separate from the engine and then imported for use.

But that is not to say you cannot have your creations seen in this mod. In fact, that is exactly why i'm here. I need units. I need cool and interesting weapons and crazy spaceships and huge tanks and cool minifig weapons and all sorts of things.

If you wish to submit a unit for the mod, please follow these guidelines:

-maximum of 16 weapons
-melee (close combat, axes, swords, etc) weapons are broken, they only work under specific conditions so until i get them working properly stick to projectile-type weapons only
-7 Ages similar to those in BrikWars, the player will upgrade through all of them (all players start in StoneAge, by end of game most should have reached HyperAge)
-Minifigs, Vehicles, Hovercraft, Air, and Sea are all possible unit types
-Please post your unit with a top, front, side, and 3D views, it makes modeling them a lot easier.

There are two races for the mod, names undecided so far (if you have any good ones, let me know).

-The first will be a sleek-looking race, with organized colours and symmetrical units

-The second will be be really asymmetrical, uneven and generally pretty cruddy looking. Basically, what you would get if this happened:

*Deep in the secret base...*
Commander: Ok, we need a new unit. What should it be?
Engineer: Well, we have some spare wheels left over from last time...
Commander: K. It shall be... A Car!
*Throws wheels out into the construction bay*
Commander: Now what? It needs some--
Weapons: GUNS!
Commander: Well, i guess so...
*Chucks on a gun*
Commander: Now, we--
Weapons: GUNS!
Commander: Bu--
Weapons: ROCKETS!
Commander: --
Weapons: LASERS!
Commander: ... I guess we can fit a few more on here...
*Chucks lots more guns on*
*Car falls apart under the weight*
Commander: Crap. Less guns then
Engineer: Well, we can always just use the bigger wheels...

Thats all i can think of for now, if anyone has any ideas please share, and if you have any units you'd like to see ingame please show them off here

damn, it's times like this when i'm at a loss. i see this as an incredible opportunity to get an awesome brikwars computer game running. the problem? what kind of a gaming experience are you looking for? as in, what BREED of RTS is this? will there be physics and whatnot in it? if i blow a vehicle to pieces, will said pieces still be sitting around on the floor? that said, can my minifigs take cover behind them?

i would absolutely love to work on this, but i'd need to know how in-depth of a gaming environment you have planned. basically, is this game physics based, where individual shots are computer calculated to see if they make a hit or not, against different kinds of cover, where facing matters and components can break off of vehicles to make them crappier, or will this be the starcrafts and command and conquers we grew up with, where a unit just did damage on an enemy, and all animations are purely for aesthetic principles?

But yes, Spring has a realistic physics engine, everything is calculated in realtime and are effected by things like wind, terrain elevation, unit speed and heading, etc.

Heres a video of the mod the game currently uses, its short and shows off some of the better parts of the engine, including first-person mode. It is worth noting that the video is quite old and the quality of graphical effects such as explosions have improved drastically since then:

wow, this is actually a lot more than i expected, power-wise. that video was just what i needed - i saw what the engine can actually DO, as opposed to reading schematics crap.

that said, graphics quality, i wouldn't worry too much about. reading through that linked thread and seeing these definitely helped me grasp the concept, and i am 100% willing to make you detailed schematics for weapons, units, etc.

however, to do this, i would REALLY like a good copy of Ldraw. anyone know where i can find one? 4 freez?

IVhorseman wrote:and i am 100% willing to make you detailed schematics for weapons, units, etc.

How many are you willing to do? There will be easily over 150 total units, spanning 7 different TekLevels and requiring a unique function. And those are just the base units. With such a huge amount, I figured the best thing to do would be move away from the normal Spring community and find some another whose players would love to see a game like this made. I've never met anyone who liked lego and wished there wasnt a videogame with massive lego armies waging huge wars! But if you're up to it, im happy to use what you're willing to make. Oh and if you decide to make more than a handleful please let me know.

To all, one thing I forgot to say is that Spring is mainly a multiplayer game. The AIs are terrible and not very exciting to play against. I'd say 95% of the community plays online (the ones that actually play). Its going to be a team-based game, games with up to 16 players. Games are probably going to take a long time to complete (I've played games of the normal non-lego game and many of them last several hours)

well, not 150. i'll work mainly with your TL 5+ stuff, and dabble a bit into the other ages too. i'm still putting my focus at near through far future though.

as for units, something fairly simple. 3 or so vehicles for each mode of transport on each team (as in for air, you'd have fighters, bombers, and i guess helicopters or something. i'll throw in a few "creative" things i can think of, but i'm not entirely sure how the engine will be able to handle some rather "unique" strategies of attack. anything the system can't handle/would take too much effort to do, go ahead and toss it). i'll also toss in some minifig weapons, too. and yes, only ranged, or at least until you fix the problem with melee

EDIT: you MAY want to absolutely and positively make sure that when this thing hits final stages not to use the word "Lego". even if this is open source non-profit stuff, you could still run into legal crap for "defacing" the "proud, LEGO company name".